Week 3--September 8-14, 2019

Sunday morning (3 AM) I (Tom) was awakened by thunder and heavy rain.  Garnalee wears ear plugs (for my loud snoring) and didn't hear a thing. We got up at 5:45 AM to arrive on time at our 7:30 AM missionary meeting in our assigned Hill Park Ward.  Our Bishop is Bishop Vaka from Samoa.  There was only one Priest at the Sacrament table, so I was asked to help bless the Sacrament.  Our Ward meets at 10:30 AM.  After Church and lunch, we began working on our presentation to the sister missionaries which will be on Friday.  We were assigned to discuss pages 86-90 of the Historical Sites handbook we received before coming to Missouri.  On Tuesday, a 1976 graduate of Rigby High School introduced himself and said he recognized me from RHS.  Seems to happen quite regularly. On Wednesday it was Garnalee's turn.  A group visited from Osgood, where Garnalee was born and raised.  They knew several of the same people. I called my grand-nephew, Andrew Carson to see how he is doing.  He was baptized the Saturday before we left for the MTC.  He was a road construction flagman, but to have year-round employment, he changed to a brick making company in American Fork.  He was ordained to the Aaronic Priesthood last Sunday. Thursday is our Preparation Day (P-day).  Garnalee did all the laundry ($9.25) so I could make the bed with clean sheets and then I ironed 5 long-sleeved, white shirts.

It has been reaffirmed to us what a small world it it. We were serving at the Independence Visitors' Center on Wednesday when a couple came in with their son from Utah. The sister missionaries asked them what their name was. They responded "Shaw." I walked over and told them that my grandmother was a "Shaw." They asked if she was an "English Shaw" or a "Scottish Shaw." I told them she was a "Scottish Shaw." In the continuing conversation he told me his father was Ivan Shaw which was a name I remembered from growing up. I told them my grandmother was Ora Shaw and she married a Warnock. They remembered "Aunt Ora" but didn't remember her husband's name. I told them he went by "Elick" which they immediately remembered. His grandfather, Robert William Shaw and my grandmother, Ora Shaw are brother and sister. So John Shaw, in the picture with us, and I are second cousins.

 Tom in front of our apartment building in Independence. We're on the top floor and find it to be very comfortable.

View of our apartment building from the parking lot. Ours is the top window on the right.

 Our daily walk is in the Woodlawn Cemetery which is just across the street from our apartment. It gives us a nice, safe place to walk.

 Most days we walk 2/3 miles in the adjacent cemetery to begin our day.

 As we walk we look at the headstones that are close to the roads. The earliest date we have found is a death date of 1818 (that's 201 years ago!). The headstone is partially broken off so we can't read the name or the birth date. There may be earlier dates but many of the headstones are not legible.

 There are many small buildings scattered throughout the cemetery which are crypts or mausoleums. There is even one that looks like a bunker.

















We found this headstone interesting since Missouri was a slave state and fought with Confederacy in the Civil War. It is for a woman who was born a slave. She later became a businesswoman in Independence. She also developed and marketed a salve.

We even found a Harrington headstone. We don't know if they are relatives, but we'll have to check it out.

While the sister missionaries do all of the tour guiding so far, we know we'll be leading groups too, so we spend a lot of time studying the history of the area.

Last Friday our missionary training lesson was on the last four pages of the book we all study.  We suspect the mission president's wife assigned us to present it was to help us along in our study.  We took about 30 minutes to make the presentation, and were pleased with the results.